A traveling wave decelerator for neutral polar molecules

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of a traveling wave decelerator for neutral polar molecules, detailing its design, electronics, and experimental validation, including velocity distribution measurements and loss analysis.

Contribution

It offers the first complete description of the decelerator's design and performance, including electronics, mechanics, and experimental results, advancing molecular deceleration technology.

Findings

Transverse velocity distributions match trajectory simulations.

Deceleration signals differ between isotopologues, indicating non-adiabatic losses.

Experimental results validate the decelerator's effectiveness.

Abstract

Recently, a decelerator for neutral polar molecules has been presented that operates on the basis of macroscopic, three-dimensional, traveling electrostatic traps (Osterwalder et al., Phys. Rev. A 81, 051401 (2010)). In the present paper, a complete description of this decelerator is given, with emphasis on the electronics and the mechanical design. Experimental results showing the transverse velocity distributions of guided molecules are shown and compared to trajectory simulations. An assessment of non-adiabatic losses is made by comparing the deceleration signals from 13-CO with those from 12-CO and with simulated signals.